of the world, which the greater part of these territories naturally is? Could the present aspect of any country, with every alterable feature changed, and with every altered feature marked, have been delineated by different uninspired mortals, in various ages from 2200 to 3300 years past? And there could not, so far as all researches have hitherto reached, be a more triumphant demonstration, from existing facts, of the truth of manifold prophecies. In reference to the complete historical truth of the predictions respecting the successive kings of Syria and Egypt, Bishop Newton emphatically remarks (as Sir Isaac Newton's observations had previously proved) that there is not so concise and comprehensive an account of their affairs to be found in any author of these times; that the prophecy is really more perfect than any single history, and that no one historian hath related so many circumstances as the prophet has foretold: so that "it was necessary to have recourse to several authors for the better explaining and illustrating the great variety of particulars contained in the prophecy." The same remark, in the same words, may, more obviously, and with equal truth, be now applied to the geographical as well as to the historical proof of the truth of prophecy. Judea, which, before the age of the prophets, had, from the uniformity and peculiarity of its government and laws, remained unvaried in a manner and to a degree unusual among nations, has since undergone many convulsions, and has for many generations been unceasingly subjected to reiterated spoliation. And now, after the lapse of more than twenty centuries, travellers see what prophets foretold. Each prediction is fulfilled in all its particulars, so far as the facts have (and in almost every case they have) been made known. But while the recent discoveries of many travellers have disclosed the state of these countries, each of their accounts presents only an imperfect delineation; and a variety of these must be combined before they bring fully into view all those diversified, discriminating, and characteristic features of the extensive scene which were vividly depicted of old, in all their minute lines, and varied shades, by the pencil of prophecy, and which set before us, as it were, the history, the land, and the people of Palestine. Judea trodden down by successive desolators,—remaining uncultivated from generation to generation,— the general devastation of the country,—the mouldering ruins of its many cities,-the cheerless solitude of its once happy plains,-the wild produce of its luxuriant mountains, the land covered with thorns, the highways waste and untrodden,-its ancient possessors scattered abroad, the inhabitants thereof depraved in character, few in number, eating their bread with carefulness, or in constant dread of the spoiler or oppressor,the insecurity of property,—the uselessness of labour,the poverty of their revenues,-the land emptied and despoiled,-instrumental music ceased from among them -the mirth of the land gone,-the use of wine prohibited in a land of vines, and the wine itself bitter unto them that drink it;-some very partial exceptions from universal desolation, some rescued remnants, like the gleanings of a field, and emblems of the departed glory of Judea, the devastation of the land of Ammon, the extinction of the Ammonites,-the destruction of all their cities, their country a spoil to the heathen,—and a perpetual desolation;-the desolation of Moab,-its cities without any to dwell therein, and no city escaped, the valley perished, the plain destroyed, the wanderers that have come up against it, and that cause its inhabitants to wander, the manner of the spoliation of the dwellers in Moab, their danger and insecurity in the plain country, and flying to the rocks for a refuge and a home, -while flocks lie down among the ruins of the cities, none there to make them afraid, and the despoiled and impoverished condition of some of its wretched wanderers;-Idumea untrodden and unvisited by travellers,-the scene of an unparalleled and irrecoverable desolation,— its cities utterly abandoned and destroyed,—of the greater part of them no traces left-a desolate wilderness, over which the line of confusion is stretched out,—the country bare, no kingdom there, its princes and nobles nothing, and empty sepulchres their only memorials,thistles and thorns in its palaces,-a border of wickedness, and yet greatly despised,-wisdom perished from Teman, and understanding out of the mount of Esau,abandoned to birds and beasts and reptiles, specified by name, its ancient possessors cut off for ever, and no one remaining of the house of Esau ;-the destruction of the cities of the Philistines,-cottages for shepherds and folds for flocks, along the seacoast,-the remnant of the plain destroyed and unoccupied by any fixed inhabitant;-Lebanon ashamed, its cedars, few and diminu tive, now a mockery instead of a praise ;—and, finally, the different fate of many cities particularly defined,the long subjection of Jerusalem to the Gentiles,-the buildings of Samaria cast down into the valley, its foundations discovered, and vineyards in its stead, all so clearly marked, both in the prophecy and on the spot, that they serve to fix its site,-Rabbah-Ammon, the capital of the Ammonites, now a pasture for camels, and a couching-place for flocks,-the chief city of Edom brought down,-a court for owls, and no man dwelling in it, the forsaken Gaza, bereaved of a monarch, bald of all its fortifications, or defenceless,-Ashkelon, desolate, without an inhabitant,—and Ekron rooted up: these are all ancient prophecies, and these are all present facts, which form of themselves a phalanx of evidence which all the shafts of infidelity can never pierce. Though the countries included in these predictions comprehend a field of prophecy extending over upwards of one hundred and twenty thousand square miles, the existing state of every part of which bears witness of their truth; yet the prophets, as inspired by the God of nations, foretold the fate of mightier monarchies, of more extensive regions, and of more powerful cities: and there is not a people, nor a country, nor a capital which was then known to the Israelites whose future history they did not clearly reveal. And, instead of adducing arguments from the preceding very abundant materials, or drawing those facts already adduced to their legitimate conclusion, they may be left in their native strength, like the unhewn adamant; and we may pass to other proofs which also show that the temple of Christian faith rests upon a rock that cannot be shaken. CHAPTER VI. NINEVEH. To a brief record of the creation of the antediluvian world, and of the dispersion and the different settlements of mankind after the deluge, the Scriptures of the Old Testament add a full and particular history of the He brews for the space of fifteen hundred years, from the days of Abraham to the era of the last of the prophets. While the historical part of Scripture thus traces, from its origin, the history of the world, the prophecies give a prospective view which reaches to its end. And it is remarkable that profane history, emerging from fable, becomes clear and authentic about the very period when sacred history terminates, and when the fulfilment of these prophecies commences, which refer to other nations besides the Jews. Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was for a long time an extensive and populous city. Its walls are said, by heathen historians, to have been a hundred feet in height, sixty miles in compass, and to have been defended by fifteen hundred towers, each two hundred feet high. Although it formed the subject of some of the earliest of the prophecies, and was the very first which met its predicted fate, yet a heathen historian, in describing its capture and destruction, repeatedly refers to an ancient prediction respecting it. Diodorus Siculus relates, that the King of Assyria, after the complete discomfiture of his army, confided in an old prophecy, that Nineveh would not be taken unless the river should become the enemy of the city ;* that, after an ineffectual siege of two years, the river, swollen with long-continued and tempestuous torrents, inundated part of the city, and threw down the wall for the space of twenty furlongs; and that the king, deeming the prediction accomplished, despaired of his safety, and erected an immense funeral pile, on which he heaped his wealth, and with which himself, his household, and palace were consumed.† The book of Nahum was avowedly prophetic of the destruction of Nineveh: and it is there foretold "that the gates of the river shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved." "Nineveh of old, like a pool of waterwith an overflowing flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof." The historian describes the facts by which the other predictions of the prophet were as literally fulfilled. He relates that the King of Assyria, elated with his former victories, and ignorant of the revolt of the Bactrians, had abandoned himself to scandalous inaction; had appointed a time of festivity, and supplied his soldiers with abundance of wine; and that *Diod. Sic. lib. ii. p. 82, 83. Ed. Wessel. 1793. † Ibid. p. 84. Nahum ii. 68. the general of the enemy, apprized, by deserters, of their negligence and drunkenness, attacked the Assyrian army while the whole of them were fearlessly giving way to indulgence, destroyed great part of them, and drove the rest into the city.* The words of the prophet were hereby verified: "While they be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble full dry." The prophet promised much spoil to the enemy: "Take the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold; for there is no end of the store and glory out of all the pleasant furniture."‡ And the historian affirms, that many talents of gold and silver, preserved from the fire, were carried to Ecbatana.§ According to Nahum, the city was not only to be destroyed by an overflowing flood, but the fire also was to devour it ;|| and, as Diodorus relates, partly by water, partly by fire, it was destroyed. The utter and perpetual destruction and desolation of Nineveh were foretold :-" The Lord will make an utter end of the place thereof. Affliction shall not rise up the second time. She is empty, void, and waste.-The Lord will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria, and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness. How is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in!" In the second century, Lucian, a native of a city on the banks of the Euphrates, testified that Nineveh was utterly perished-that there was no vestige of it remaining-and that none could tell where once it was situated. This testimony of Lucian, and the lapse of many ages during which the place was not known where it stood, render it at least somewhat doubtful whether the remains of an ancient city, opposite to Mosul, which have been described as such by travellers, be indeed those of ancient Nineveh. It is, perhaps, probable that they are the remains of the city which succeeded Nineveh, or of a Persian city of the same name, which was built on the banks of the Tigris by the Persians subsequently to the year 230 of the Christian era, and demolished by the Saracens in 632.** In contrasting the then existing great and increasing population, and the accumulating wealth of the proud Diod. Sic. lib. ii. p. 81, 84. † Nahum i. 10; iii. 2. || Nahum iii. 15. Zeph. ii. 13, 14, 15. 600. Ed. Franeq. 1696. |